I’ve found an anatomy teacher who made figure drawing finally start to come together for me. This is what I’ve been seeking over the last four years or so of spending hours every day scratching away at my iPad in Procreate.
In the end we’re just rendering basic shapes right? Spheres, Cylinders, ovoids, etc. We’re doing it forcefully at times, and exceedingly subtly at others. Drawing young female faces is a very subtle art because so many of the features are SO subtly apparent, BUT THEY ARE APPARENT nonetheless! If they are missing entirely, the illusion cannot be achieved, and I am looking at a very cartoonish image.
The solution for me as it turns out, is a more rigorous study of anatomy with a REALLY good teacher. There’s a guy by the name of Ray Bustos at NMA.art (New Masters Academy). Mr. Rey studied under Burne Hogarth ( who’s books on anatomy I have read, but gave up trying to grasp). This guy broke anatomy down to maybe 40-50 muscles (Remember the body is symmetrical), the bones under those muscles, and the tendons we see evidence of when we draw the skin. No need to know all of the hidden muscles that we will never see evidence of on the surface!
Less work! Getting right to the point! I love that! I NEED that!
I spent 8 weeks drawing muscles and bones and tendons on top of masters drawings-Looking for the evidence of those features on the skin’s surface and then drawing in the complete muscles.
I’m learning from a teacher who has spent a lifetime digesting this material, using it to create art, and figuring out the most understandable way to teach it.
The bottom line for me is that I can’t draw it if I don’t know it’s there, or if I don’t understand how it relates to other parts of the system. Perfect example: Did you know that the Serratus Anterior is connected by tendon to the bottom tip of the Scapula? Did you know that the Deltoid is connected by tendon material to the entire top of the Scapula? And then connects on the other end to the tuberosity (just a bump on the bone) of the Humerus? With the Acromion process right in the middle of the Deltoid? Moving that scapula affects the orientation and flexure of all of those muscles! Yet It can only turn about 30 degrees.
Understanding the subject I’m drawing- as it turns out- is vitally important. That should be obvious I suppose, but I often take odd paths to enlightenment. My mind doesn’t seem to work in quite the same way as many others!
I’ve taken the path of breaking down the immediately obvious into manageable shapes and rendering those, but the results while much better than before were unsatisfactory. Tubes and Spheres are great to get going, but to reach that next level, I really needed to learn what is hiding beneath the surface of the skin.
Under the skin is a basket weave of bone, muscle and tendon. Objects never just butt up against each other, they intertwine like a basket weave. Now as I draw, I’m asking myself “What is the relationship between them muscle I’m drawing and the other muscles, bones and tendons connected to it and surrounding it?”
I work on a 12.9” iPad pro mainly in Procreate. To help me understand the size, shape and connection points of the essential muscles, bones and tendons I’ve downloaded an app called “Anatomy 3D atlas” as well as another app called L’ecorche’. Between the two apps, I have been able to gain an excellent visualization of each muscle and where it connects. Anatomy 3D Atlas provides the ability to isolate or even hide muscles that are obscuring muscles that I want to study! Between all of these tools, I now have a very powerful method of understanding exactly how the movement of one will affect the others!
When I attended Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design in the late 90s, they had us all read and write essays about ‘seeing’. While I scoffed at the class at the time, it is one of the most memorable lessons I learned there.
We as artist see.
Then we create.
We can’t skip the seeing part if we’re going to be good at what we do. In this case, correctly seeing requires concentrated study using these wonderful and relatively inexpensive tools to build that necessary awareness.
As always, I find myself again at the beginning of a journey of discovery and improvement. Now I’m armed with a sharper set of eyes!
Until next time…